Big names are hitting the jackpot at No.10

IT PAYS to be an outside-half in the Premiership. The recently published salary cap report for the 2023-24 campaign saw the average pay for a 10 was not far from double that of a scrum-half.

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It provided the headline for the report which showed how the average salary of senior players had dropped by more than 11 per cent from the previous season while those of academy players rose by 14.5 per cent.

Are outside-halves valued far more than their half-back partners? What the report does not divulge is the total of the two sets of players on the books of Premiership clubs. Scrum-half is virtually an exclusive position, with the likes of Austin Healey rare to the point of extinction, and clubs need more of them on their roster than 10s.

Outside-half is different with the likes of Alex Goode, George Furbank and Santi Carreras covering the position from full-back and Henry Slade, James Williams and Rob du Preez from midfield.

The Premiership play-offs were staged this weekend. Bath took on Bristol on Friday night with Leicester welcoming Sale yesterday. All four starting outside-halves were highly experienced internationals: Finn Russell, AJ MacGinty, Handre Pollard and George Ford, right.

Each Premiership club is allowed one marquee player whose salary does not form part of the cap. They are officially called excluded players - their names are not included in the report - and their average salary last season was nearly £570,000. The overall average for senior players - 431 were employed last season was just under £172,000. Twenty per cent of the outside-halves earned at least £350,000. Not one scrum-half did, which means that there was no marquee player in that position last season.

With 17 per cent of the outside-halves earning more than £400,000 a year, a few of them would have been excluded players: Russell, Pollard and Owen Farrell ahead of his move from Saracens to Racing 92 were likely candidates.